Abstract
Organizations private rms, government agencies, and non-pro t organizations can be modeled as networks of agents who are working together toward a common set of goals. Arrow (1974) views organizations as ways to overcome the limits of individual agents. By bringing together multiple workers, organizations can perform tasks that are outside the reach of any individual. While this creates production opportunities it also poses a challenge. In order to be productive, workers must coordinate their actions. Often this requires communicating information that is dispersed throughout the organization.
However, we humans face cognitive limits: transmitting and absorbing information requires time and energy. Managers spend a considerable part of their work time communicating with other workers. Bandiera et al. (2011) report that over 80% of the work time of executive managers is spend in communication activities, such as meetings, phone conversations, events, conferences, etc. Mankins et al. (2014) nd that senior executives devote more than two days every week to meetings involving three or more coworkers, and 15% of an organization s collective time is spent in meetings.